The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and became an early hit for Fox, becoming the network's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–90).

Since its debut on December 17, 1989, 639 episodes of The Simpsons have been broadcast. It is the longest-running American sitcom, and, in 2009, it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest-running American scripted primetime television series in terms of seasons and in terms of episodes in 2018. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 27, 2007, and grossed over $527 million. On November 4, 2016, the series was renewed for a thirtieth season, extending the show to May 2019; it will premiere on September 30, 2018.

Selected episode

"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of The Simpsons' ninth season, and premiered on September 21, 1997 on Fox. The episode sees the Simpson family traveling to Manhattan to recover the family car, which was taken by Barney and abandoned outside the World Trade Center complex with numerous parking tickets. Upon arrival, the family tour the city, while Homer attempts to find his car. He discovers it outside the World Trade Center, where a parking officer later arrives to remove the clamp, but leaves as Homer is urinating inside one of the towers. In frustration, Homer decides to drive the car with the clamp attached. He successfully removes it later and races to Central Park to find his family and leave the city. Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham was interested in making an episode where the Simpson family travels to New York to retrieve their lost car. Executive producers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein suggested that the car be found in the World Trade Center plaza, as they wanted a location that would be widely known. Great lengths were taken to make a detailed replica of the city of Manhattan. The episode received generally positive reviews, and has since been on accolade lists of Simpsons episodes. The "You're Checkin' In" musical sequence won two awards. Because of the World Trade Center's central role, the episode was initially taken off syndication in many areas following the September 11, 2001 attacks, but has come back into syndication in recent years.

Did you know...

...that Lisa Simpson's struggles to be a voice of reason in her family struck a chord with viewers in Japan and the broadcasters found they were able to turn the apparent dislike of the series around by focusing marketing attention on her?

Selected quote

The shorts were getting a great audience response, and Matt had always had this dream of making a prime-time animated program, which was not something that was done at the time. So myself and another producer friend got together with Matt to create 'The Simpsons.' It actually worked out quite well, because I had the background in sitcoms, and Matt had the background in animation, so we complemented each other to create what is today 'The Simpsons.'

1.
The Simpsons
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The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a depiction of working-class life epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa. The show is set in the town of Springfield and parodies American culture, society, television. The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks, Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19,1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a prime time show and became an early hit for Fox. Since its debut on December 17,1989,615 episodes of The Simpsons have been broadcast and its 28th season began on September 25,2016. It is the longest-running American sitcom and the longest-running American animated program, the Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 27,2007, and grossed over $527 million. On May 4,2015, the series was renewed for seasons 27 and 28, on November 4,2016, the series was renewed for seasons 29 and 30, consisting of 22 episodes each. The Simpsons received widespread critical acclaim throughout its first nine or ten seasons, Time named it the 20th centurys best television series, and Erik Adams of The A. V. Club named it televisions crowning achievement regardless of format, on January 14,2000, the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 31 Primetime Emmy Awards,30 Annie Awards, Homers exclamatory catchphrase Doh. has been adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has influenced many adult-oriented animated sitcoms. Despite this, the show has also criticized for what many perceive as a decline in quality over the years. The Simpsons are a family who live in a fictional Middle American town of Springfield, Homer, the father, works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position at odds with his careless, buffoonish personality. He is married to Marge Simpson, a stereotypical American housewife, although the family is dysfunctional, many episodes examine their relationships and bonds with each other and they are often shown to care about one another. The family owns a dog, Santas Little Helper, and a cat, Snowball V, renamed Snowball II in I, both pets have had starring roles in several episodes. The show includes an array of supporting characters, co-workers, teachers, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople. The creators originally intended many of these characters as jokes or for fulfilling needed functions in the town

2.
Homer Simpson
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Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the American animated television series The Simpsons as the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, Homer was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip Life in Hell and he named the character after his father, Homer Groening. After appearing for three seasons on The Tracey Ullman Show, the Simpson family got their own series on Fox that debuted December 17,1989, Homer and his wife Marge have three children, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. As the familys provider, he works at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant as a plant operator. Despite the suburban blue-collar routine of his life, he has had a number of remarkable experiences. He has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons – including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials and comic books – and inspired an entire line of merchandise. His signature catchphrase, the annoyed grunt Doh. has been included in The New Oxford Dictionary of English since 1998, Homer is one of the most influential characters in the history of television. The British newspaper The Sunday Times described him as the greatest comic creation of time, for voicing Homer, Castellaneta has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and a special-achievement Annie Award. In 2000, Homer and his family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Homer is the bumbling husband of Marge and father of Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson. He is the son of Mona and Abraham Grampa Simpson, Homer held over 188 different jobs in the first 400 episodes of The Simpsons. In most episodes, he works as the Nuclear Safety Inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position he has held since Homers Odyssey, the third episode of the series. At the plant, Homer is often ignored and completely forgotten by his boss Mr. Burns, Matt Groening has stated that he decided to have Homer work at the power plant because of the potential for Homer to wreak havoc. Each of his other jobs has lasted only one episode, in the first half of the series, the writers developed an explanation about how he got fired from the plant and was then rehired in every episode. In later episodes, he began a new job on impulse. The Simpsons uses a floating timeline in which the characters never age, and, as such. Nevertheless, in episodes, events in Homers life have been linked to specific time periods. However, the episode That 90s Show contradicted much of this backstory, portraying Homer and Marge as a childless couple in the early 1990s

3.
Society of the United States
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Today the United States of America is an ethnically and racially diverse country as result of large-scale immigration from many different countries throughout its history. Its chief early influences came from English and Irish settlers of colonial America, British culture, due to colonial ties with Britain that spread the English language, legal system and other cultural inheritances, had a formative influence. Other important influences came from parts of Europe. The United States has often thought of as a melting pot, but recent developments tend towards cultural diversity, pluralism. Due to the extent of American culture there are many integrated, the strongest influences on American culture came from northern European cultures, most prominently from Britain, Ireland, and Germany. Though most Americans today identify themselves as class, American society. Social class, generally described as a combination of educational attainment, income, nearly all cultural aspects of mundane interactions and consumer behavior in the US are guided by a persons location within the countrys social structure. Distinct lifestyles, consumption patterns and values are associated with different classes, early sociologist-economist Thorstein Veblen, for example, noted that those at the very top of the social ladder engage in conspicuous leisure as well as conspicuous consumption. Upper-middle-class persons commonly identify education and being cultured as prime values, persons in this particular social class tend to speak in a more direct manner that projects authority, knowledge and thus credibility. They often tend to engage in the consumption of so-called mass luxuries, a strong preference for natural materials and organic foods as well as a strong health consciousness tend to be prominent features of the upper middle class. Middle-class individuals in general value expanding ones horizon, partially because they are educated and can afford greater leisure. Working-class individuals take great pride in doing what they consider to be real work, working-class Americans as well as many of those in the middle class may also face occupation alienation. As a result, white collar professionals tend to be more satisfied with their work. More recently those in the center of the strata, who may still identify as middle class, have faced increasing economic insecurity. Political behavior is affected by class, more affluent individuals are likely to vote. In the United States occupation is one of the factors of social class and is closely linked to an individual’s identity. The average work week in the US for those employed full-time was 42.9 hours long with 30% of the population working more than 40 hours a week. It should be noted, however, that many of those in the top two earning quintiles often worked more than 50 hours a week, the Average American worker earned $16.64 an hour in the first two quarters of 2006

4.
Gunsmoke
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Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, the central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television. When aired in the UK, the series was initially titled Gun Law. The radio series ran from 1952 to 1961, John Dunning wrote that among radio drama enthusiasts, Gunsmoke is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time. The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, at the end of its run in 1975, Los Angeles Times columnist Cecil Smith wrote, Gunsmoke was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own Iliad and Odyssey, created from elements of the dime novel and the pulp western as romanticized by Buntline, Harte. It was ever the stuff of legend, robinson instructed his West Coast CBS Vice President, Harry Ackerman, who had developed the Philip Marlowe series, to take on the task. Ackerman and his scriptwriters, Mort Fine and David Friedkin, created a script called Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye based on one of their Michael Shayne radio scripts. Two auditions were created in 1949, CBS liked the Culver version better, and Ackerman was told to proceed. A complication arose, though, Culvers contract as the star of Straight Arrow would not allow him to do another Western series, the project was shelved for three years, when producer Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston discovered it while creating an adult Western series of their own. Macdonnell and Meston wanted to create a radio Western for adults, in contrast to the prevailing juvenile fare such as The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, Kansas, during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s. Dunning notes, The show drew critical acclaim for unprecedented realism, the radio series first aired on CBS on April 26,1952 with the episode Billy the Kid, written by Walter Newman, and ended on June 18,1961. The show stars William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon, Howard McNear as Doc Charles Adams, Georgia Ellis as Kitty Russell, Dillon was played on radio by William Conrad and on TV by James Arness. Conrad was one of the last actors to audition for the role of Marshal Dillon, with a resonantly powerful and distinctive voice, Conrad was already one of radios busiest actors. Though Meston championed him, Macdonnell thought Conrad might be overexposed, during his audition, however, Conrad won over Macdonnell after reading only a few lines. Dillon as portrayed by Conrad was a lonely, isolated man, Macdonnell later claimed, Much of Matt Dillons character grew out of Bill Conrad. Meston relished the upending of cherished Western fiction clichés and felt that few Westerns gave any inkling of how brutal the Old West was in reality. Many episodes were based on mans cruelty to man and woman, inasmuch as the womans life

5.
1994 Northridge earthquake
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The 1994 Northridge earthquake occurred on January 17, at 4,30,55 a. m. PST and had its epicenter in Reseda, a neighborhood in the north-central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles and it had a duration of approximately 10–20 seconds. The peak ground velocity at the Rinaldi Receiving Station was 183 cm/s, in addition, two 6.0 Mw aftershocks occurred, the first about one minute after the initial event and the second approximately 11 hours later, the strongest of several thousand aftershocks in all. The death toll was 57, with more than 8,700 injured, in addition, property damage was estimated to be between $13 and $40 billion, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in U. S. history. The earthquake struck in the San Fernando Valley about 20 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, although given the name Northridge, the epicenter was located in the community of Reseda, it took several days to pinpoint the epicenter in detail. This was the first instance with a hypocenter directly beneath a U. S. city since the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, the National Geophysical Data Center placed the hypocenters geographical coordinates at 34°12′47″N 118°32′13″W and at a depth of 11.4 miles. It occurred on a previously undiscovered fault, now named the Northridge blind thrust fault, several other faults experienced minor rupture during the main shock and other ruptures occurred during large aftershocks, or triggered events. Damage occurred up to 85 miles away, with the most damage in the west San Fernando Valley, the exact number of fatalities is unknown, with sources estimating it at 60 or over 60, to 72, where most estimates fall around 60. The official death toll was placed at 57,33 people died immediately or within a few days from injuries sustained, some counts factor in related events such as a mans suicide possibly inspired by the loss of his business in the disaster. More than 8,700 were injured including 1,600 who required hospitalization, the Northridge Meadows apartment complex was one of the well-known affected areas in which sixteen people were killed as a result of the buildings collapse. The Northridge Fashion Center and California State University, Northridge also sustained very heavy damage—most notably, the earthquake also gained worldwide attention because of damage to the vast freeway network, which serves millions of commuters every day. Because of the morning darkness, he likely did not realize that the elevated roadway below him had collapsed. When the interchange was rebuilt one year later, it was renamed the Clarence Wayne Dean Memorial Interchange in his honor. Additional damage occurred about 50 miles southeast in Anaheim as the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium collapsed onto several hundred seats, the stadium was vacant at the time. Although several commercial buildings also collapsed, loss of life was minimized because of the morning hour of the quake. Also, because of seismic activity in California, area building codes dictate that buildings incorporate structural design intended to withstand earthquakes. However, the damage caused revealed that some structural specifications did not perform as intended, because of these revelations, building codes were revised. Some structures were not red-tagged until months later, because damage was not immediately evident, the quake produced unusually strong ground accelerations in the range of 1.0 g

6.
DVD
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DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. The medium can store any kind of data and is widely used for software. DVDs offer higher capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions. Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD, such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs can be recorded using a DVD recorder. Rewritable DVDs can be recorded and erased many times, DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The OED also states that in 1995, The companies said the name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name ‘digital video disk’, but that was switched to ‘digital versatile disk’ after computer companies complained that it left out their applications, Digital versatile disc is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forums mission statement. There were several formats developed for recording video on optical discs before the DVD, Optical recording technology was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958 and first patented in 1961. A consumer optical disc data format known as LaserDisc was developed in the United States and it used much larger discs than the later formats. CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm size of audio CDs, Video CD became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc formats were being developed. By the time of the launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc. Representatives from the SD camp asked IBM for advice on the system to use for their disc. Alan E. Bell, a researcher from IBMs Almaden Research Center, got that request and this group was referred to as the Technical Working Group, or TWG. On August 14,1995, an ad hoc group formed from five computer companies issued a release stating that they would only accept a single format. The TWG voted to both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions, as a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB for a dual-layered, single-sided disc

7.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

8.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia

9.
7-Eleven
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7-Eleven is an international chain of convenience stores, headquartered in Irving, Texas, that operates, franchises, and licenses some 56,600 stores in 18 countries. The chain was known as Totem Stores until renamed in 1946 and its parent company, Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd. is located in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Seven-Eleven Japan is held by the Seven & I Holdings Co, the companys first outlets were named Totem Stores because customers toted away their purchases. Some stores featured genuine Alaskan totem poles in front of the store, in 1946, the chains name was changed from Totem to 7-Eleven to reflect the companys new, extended hours,7,00 am to 11,00 pm, seven days per week. In November 1999, the name of the US company was changed from The Southland Corporation to 7-Eleven Inc. He eventually bought the Southland Ice Company and turned it into Southland Corporation, in 1928, Jenna Lira brought a totem pole as a souvenir from Alaska and placed it in front of the store. The pole served as a tool for the company, as it attracted a great deal of attention. Soon, executives added totem poles in front of every store, later on, the stores began operating under the name Totem Stores. In the same year, the company began constructing gasoline stations in some of its Dallas locations as an experiment, joe Thompson also provided a distinct characteristic to the companys stores, training the staff so that people would receive the same quality and service in every store. Southland also started to have a uniform for its ice station service boys and this became the major factor in the companys success as a retail convenience store. In 1931, the Great Depression affected the company, sending it toward bankruptcy, nevertheless, the company continued its operations through re-organization and receivership. Overton Jr. also helped to revive the companys finances by selling the bonds for seven cents on the dollar. This brought the companys ownership under the control of a board of directors, in 1946, in an effort to continue the companys post-war recovery, the name of the franchise was changed to 7-Eleven to reflect the stores new hours of operation, which were unprecedented at the time. In 1969, 7-Eleven experimented with a 24-hour schedule in Austin, Texas, later on, 24-hour stores were established in Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas, as well as Las Vegas, Nevada. In 1971, Southland acquired convenience stores of the former Pak-A-Sak chain owned by Graham Allen Penniman, Sr. of Shreveport, with the purchase in 1964 of 126 Speedee Mart franchised convenience stores in California, the company entered the franchise business. The company signed its first area licensing agreement in 1968 with Garb-Ko, Inc. of Saginaw, Michigan, in December 1987, John Philp Thompson, the chairman and CEO of 7-Eleven, completed a $5.2 billion management buyout of the company. Various assets, such as the Chief Auto Parts chain, the ice division and this downsizing also resulted in numerous metropolitan areas losing 7-Eleven stores to rival convenience store operators. In October 1990, the heavily indebted Southland Corp. filed a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to control of 70% of the company to Japanese affiliate Ito-Yokado

10.
Seattle
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Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States and the seat of King County, Washington. With an estimated 684,451 residents as of 2015, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In July 2013, it was the major city in the United States. The city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border, a major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named Seattle in 1852, after Chief Siahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Logging was Seattles first major industry, but by the late-19th century, growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed as a technology center beginning in the 1980s, in 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District, to the Central District, the jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix and the alternative rock subgenre grunge, archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay, the first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28,1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon, after a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, david Swinson Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name Seattle appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23,1853, in 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14,1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of managing the city

11.
Culture of the United States
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The culture of the United States of America is primarily a mix of various European, Native American, African, Asian, and Polynesian cultures. It also has its own social and cultural characteristics, such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, the United States of America is an ethnically and racially diverse country as a result of large-scale migration from many countries throughout its history. Its chief early European influences came from English settlers of colonial America during British rule, due to colonial ties with Britain that spread the English language, British culture, legal system and other cultural inheritances, had a formative influence. Other important influences came from parts of Europe, especially Germany. Original elements also play a role, such as Jeffersonian democracy. American culture includes both conservative and liberal elements, scientific and religious competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free expression, materialist, despite certain consistent ideological principles, American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographic diversity. The flexibility of U. S. culture and its symbolic nature lead some researchers to categorize American culture as a mythic identity. Many American cultural elements, especially from popular culture, have spread across the globe through modern mass media, the United States has traditionally been thought of as a melting pot. However, beginning in the 1960s and continuing on in the present day, the trends towards cultural diversity, pluralism. Due to the extent of American culture, there are many integrated, the percentage of non-religious people is the highest in the northeastern state of Vermont at 34%, compared to the Bible Belt state of Alabama, where it is 6%. Strong cultural differences have a history in the U. S. with the southern slave society in the antebellum period serving as a prime example. David Hackett Fischer theorizes that the United States is made up today of four regional cultures. According to Fischer, the foundation of American culture was formed from four mass migrations from four different regions of the British Isles by four distinct socio-religious groups. New Englands earliest settlement period occurred between 1629 and 1640 when Puritans, mostly from East Anglia in England, settled there, the next mass migration was of southern English cavaliers and their working class English domestic servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675. This facilitated the development of the Southern American culture, then, thousands of English and Welsh Quakers, led by William Penn, settled in the Delaware Valley followed by large numbers of German Lutherans. S. From the mid-Atlantic states to the Pacific Coast, finally, Scotch-Irish, English and Scottish settlers from the borderlands of Britain and Ireland migrated to Appalachia between 1717 and 1775. They formed the culture of the Upland South, which has since spread west to such areas as West Texas. Fischer suggests that the U. S. today is not a country with one General American culture and he asserts that the country is composed of just regional cultures, and that understanding that helps one to understand many things about modern American life

12.
The Simpsons Movie
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The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the Fox television series The Simpsons. As the townspeople exile him and eventually his family abandons him, Homer works to redeem his folly by stopping Russ Cargill, the head of the EPA. Previous attempts to create a The Simpsons film failed due to the lack of a script of appropriate length, eventually, producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Richard Sakai, and Mike Scully began development of the film in 2001. A writing team consisting of Brooks, Groening, Jean, Scully, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder and they conceived numerous plot ideas, with Groenings being the one developed into a film. The script was re-written over a hundred times, and this creativity continued after the animation had begun in 2006 and this meant hours of finished material was cut, which included cameo roles from Erin Brockovich, Minnie Driver, Isla Fisher, Kelsey Grammer, and Edward Norton. Hanks and Green Day appeared in the cut as themselves. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Burger King and 7-Eleven, the film premiered in Springfield, Vermont, which had won the right to hold it through a competition organized by Fox. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $527 million worldwide, at their memorial, Grampa Simpson foresees the destruction of the town, but only Marge takes this seriously. Later that day, Homer dares his son Bart to skateboard naked to Krusty Burger, Bart considers their neighbor Ned Flanders a better father figure after Homer refuses to take responsibility for the incident. Lisa and a new Irish friend named Colin convince the town to clean their lake. Meanwhile, Homer adopts a pig from Krusty Burger and names it Spider Pig, moments later, a squirrel jumps into the lake and becomes severely mutated, Flanders and Bart discover the creature before the EPA captures it. Russ Cargill, head of the EPA, presents five unthinkable options to U. S. President Arnold Schwarzenegger to keep the towns pollution contained, the slow-witted president picks option 3 without reading it, and Springfield is enclosed in a large glass dome. With the EPA on their trail, the Simpsons flee to Alaska, on the way, Homer tries to make some money at a carnival by riding a motorcycle around the inside of a metal cage. After three months of escape attempts, Springfields residents finally make a crack in the dome, pointing out the damage. After failing to talk Homer into it, his family eventually leave him for good, alone, Homer is stranded on an iceberg and floats away. Meanwhile, Marge and the children are captured by the EPA after a conversation of theirs is overheard by the NSA, after a mysterious Inuit shaman saves him from a polar bear, Homer has an epiphany and decides to return to Springfield to save the town from danger. As Homer arrives, a helicopter lowers a small but powerful bomb down a rope through a hole in the dome, the townspeople attempt to climb the rope to escape through the still-opened hole, but Homer slides down the rope and knocks them off along with the bomb. After reconciling with Bart, Homer drives a motorcycle along the dome, as a passenger of the motorcycle, Bart throws the bomb through the hole, seconds later it detonates, shattering the dome and freeing the town

The Statue of Liberty in New York City, is an important cultural symbol in the United States, and the values that it symbolizes—the virtues of freedom and liberty—are likewise integral to United States culture.